LITMIR.BIZ

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thought he smelled wet earth. The air didn’t feel so close anymore, just old and damp and rotten-sweet.

      Without bothering to wait for the old councilman’s permission, Mr. Lickerish began to speak.

      “Gentlemen, these matters are indeed most troubling. But to say that the fay are murdering changelings? It is deplorable. I will not sit silent while the blame for yet another of England’s woes is laid upon the shoulders of the fay. They are citizens! Patriots! Have you forgotten Waterloo? Where would England be without our brave faery troops? In the hands of Napoleon, together with all her empire. And the Americas? Were it not for the tireless efforts of trolls and giants, forging our cannon and pouring our musket balls in the infernal heat of the factories, building our warships and aether guns, it would still be a rebel nation. We owe so much to the faeries.” Mr. Lickerish’s face remained smooth, but his words were strangely beguiling, full of nuance and subtle passion. Even the council members who were distinctly anti-fay sat up in their chairs.

      Only the man next to Mr. Jelliby—a Lord Locktower—clicked his tongue. “Yes, including forty-three percent of our crime,” he said.

      Mr. Lickerish turned on him. He flashed his pointed teeth. “That is because they are so poor,” he said. He stood a moment, considering Lord Locktower. Then he spun sharply, addressing instead the gentlemen on the other side of the room. “It is because they are being exploited!”

      More nods and only a few hisses. The smell of damp was very strong now. Lord Locktower scowled. Mr. Jelliby saw him pull out a heavy old pocket watch and examine it angrily. The watch was an antiquated thing, scrolled and made from iron. Mr. Jelliby thought it somewhat unfashionable.

      The faery politician began to pace. “It has been this way since the day we arrived,” he said. “First we were massacred, then we were enslaved, then we were massacred again. And now? Now we are your scapegoat, to be accused of all the crimes you find too distasteful to blame on your own people. Why does England hate us? What have we done that your world loathes us so? We do not want to be here. We did not come to stay. But the road home has vanished, the door is closed.”

      The faery stopped pacing. He was watching the assembled gentlemen, watching them very closely. In a voice that was barely a wisp, he said, “We will never see our home again.”

      Mr. Jelliby thought this unbearably sad. He found himself nodding gravely along with most of the others.

      But Mr. Lickerish was not finished yet. He walked to the center of the room, right up next to the Speaker’s podium, and said, “We have suffered so much at the hands of fate. We live here in chains, locked into slums, among iron and bells that harangue against the very essence of our beings, but is that enough for you? Oh, no. We must be murderers as well. Murderers of innocent children, children who share our very blood.” He shook his head once, and as the light shifted across it, his features seemed to change and the angles soften. He didn’t look so cold anymore. He looked suddenly tragic, like the weeping angels under the trees of Hyde Park. “I can only hope justice will prevail in the end.”

      Mr. Jelliby gave the faery politician what he hoped was a look of deep and heartfelt sympathy. The other gentlemen tutted and harrumphed. But then Lord Locktower stood up and stamped his foot.

      “Now stop all this!” he cried, glaring at everyone at once. “Whining and sniveling, that’s what this is. I, for one, shall have none of it.” The gentleman two chairs over tried to shush him. He only spoke louder. Other men broke in. Lord Locktower began to shout, his face flaring red. When Baron Somerville tried to pull him back into his seat, he brought up a glove and slapped him hard across the face.

      The whole room seemed to draw in a breath. Then it exploded into pandemonium. Chairs were overturned, walking sticks were hurled to the floor, and everyone was on his feet, bellowing.

      Mr. Jelliby made for the door. Barons and dukes were everywhere, jostling and elbowing, and someone was crying “Down with England!” at the top of his lungs. Mr. Jelliby was forced to turn aside, and when he did he caught sight of Mr. Lickerish again. The faery was standing in the midst of the commotion, a pale slip in the sea of red faces and flailing black hats. He was smiling.

      

      ARTHOLOMEW lay in the attic, curled up, still as stone. Daylight slipped away. The sun began to sink behind the looming bulk of New Bath, the light from the little round window stretched its fingers ever farther and ever redder across his face, and still he did not move.

      A hard, cold fear had moved into his stomach, and he couldn’t make it go.

      He saw the lady in plum again, over and over in his mind, walking in the alley. Her hair was pulled away, the little face staring, dark and knotted, and the bramble-haired boy followed her in shadows shaped like wings. Jewels, and hats, and purple skirts. A blue hand grinding glass. Wet black eyes, and a smile under them, a horrid, horrid smile.

      It was too much for him. Too much, too quickly, a rush of sound and fury, like time sped up. Bartholomew had seen thieves from that attic window, an automaton with no legs, a pale corpse or two, but this was worse. This was dangerous, and he had been seen. Why had the lady come? And why had she taken his friend away? Bartholomew’s head ached.

      He stared at the floorboards so long he could make out every rift and wormhole. He knew it wasn’t the magic that had shaken him. Magic was a part of life in Bath, always had been. Somewhere in London, important men had decided it would be best to try to hide it, to keep the factories heaving and the church bells clanging, but it hadn’t done much good. Magic was still there. It was simply underneath, hidden in the secret pockets of the city. Bartholomew saw a twinkly-eyed gnome in Old Crow Alley now and again, dragging behind him a root in the shape of a child. Folk would open their windows to watch, and when someone dropped the gnome a penny or a bit of bread, he would make the root dance, and make it wheel around and sing. Once in a blue moon the oak on Scattercopper Lane was known to mumble prophecies. And it was common knowledge that the Buddelbinsters’ faery mother could call the mice out of the walls and make them stir her soups and twist the wool for her spinning wheel.

      So a whirling pillar of darkness was not really dreadful to Bartholomew. What was dreadful was that it had happened here, in the muddy confines of his own small street, to someone just like him. And Bartholomew Kettle had been seen.

      The sun was completely gone now. The shadows were beginning to slink from behind the rafters, and that made Bartholomew get up. He crawled out of the attic and made his way downstairs, trying not to let the groaning, sagging house give him away. Don’t get yourself noticed, and you won’t get yourself hanged.

      At the door to their rooms, Bartholomew paused. Oily yellow light seeped from under it. The rhythmic clank of the mechanical wash wringer sounded dully into the passage.

      “Come now, Hettie,” Mother was saying. Her voice was loud and cheerful, the way it was when nothing was well and she was determined not to show it. She was trying to keep Hettie from worrying. “Drink your broth down quick-like, and then off to bed. This lamp’s not got more ’n fifteen minutes in it, and I’ll be needing it another night or two.”

      There was a slurp. Hettie mumbled, “It doesn’t taste like anything.”

      That’s because it’s only water, thought Bartholomew, leaning his head against the door frame. With wax drippings so we think there’s meat in it. It was why the saucers at the base of the brass candlesticks were always empty in the mornings. Mother thought she was careful about it, but he knew. They were scraped clean by the kitchen spoon.

      “Mummy, Barthy isn’t back yet.”

      “Yes …” Mother’s voice was not so loud anymore.

      “It’s dark outside. It’s past bedtime. Isn’t it?”

      “Yes, dearie, it is.”

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